Category Archives: Valentine’s Day

Alternate post title: HOW I RUINED MY STOVE MAKING MARQUISE AU CHOCOLAT W/ KAHLUA CRÈME ANGLAIS. More on that later.

This is the first February baking challenge from Tuesdays with Dorie and it is the perfect seductive, chocolate dessert to serve your Valentine! This recipe is a basic, frozen Chocolate Mousse, that can be dressed up any way you choose. Whipped cream, chocolate curls, fresh fruit, orange peel, liqueur…basically anything you think complements chocolate! I chose to make a Kahlua Crème Anglaise and to add some raspberries, as it was one of Dorie’s suggestions for this recipe from her latest cookbook, Baking Chez Moi. The Kahlua was my call!

This recipe begins with a lot of chopped chocolate, melted with creamy butter, over a Bain-Marie–how French!

Pile of chopped semi-sweet chocolate melting with butter

I stirred until the chocolate was smooth and glossy, then folded in the egg yolk mixture.

Folding in the egg yolks

I love the trippy swirl!

The last step is folding in whipped cream, which creates a lovely, thick batter.

I made sure I left no white streaks

Once it is combined the batter is transferred into a loaf pan lined with cling wrap. As usual, I did not have the patience to keep trying to smooth the cling wrap in the pan. I told myself the batter would smooth and flatten it. I carefully tried to smooth the top, but as you can see in the picture below, it looks like a monkey tried to smooth it! I’m really trying to improve my skills, but I often give up too easily, thinking the task impossible. Eh, I’ll cover the top with cream and berries!

I am blind to imperfection. I really thought this was fairly smooth!

The loaf pan was tightly wrapped and set in the freezer. Four hours later, it was time to unmold the Marquise. It was stubborn and did not want to come out. I put a casserole dish with warm water on my stovetop (all counter space was taken) and set the loaf pan inside to loosen things up. It worked!

Here is a pic of the bottom of my wrinkly loaf, due to my poor cling wrap smoothing skills!

Seriously, I can do better than this.

RIP MY STOVE

I didn’t realize it at the time, but as I was trying to loosen the mold on my stove, I must have sloshed some water over the side of the casserole pan into the lower right gas burner. This would prove fatal to my stove when I was at minute four of continuously whisking my Crème Anglais for 7-10 minutes, in a warm pan, on the aforementioned burner.

I was whisking away, when suddenly, the flame on my burner flared and WHOOSHED and the lights in the kitchen went out. My husband flipped the breaker and the lights returned, but two of the knobs on the stove started spewing black smoke as the wiring sizzled. The burners were clicking and I was sure there would be a glass explosion. I yelled for my husband, who crawled under the smoking stove and turned off the gas. On the bright side, I now have a nice, new stove. Clean, no scratches and burners that heat evenly.

I stood off to the side continuing to whisk the Crème Anglais. The stove was dead and the house reeked of burning wire, but I was able to save the crème! I continued to whisk it in the cooling pan, on the still hot burner, but it wasn’t thickening. Okay, so don’t tell The French, but I finished heating it in the microwave! Mon Dieu! Blasphème! I heated it for 20 seconds then stirred. I repeated this a number of times until I had a thick, pourable, delicious sauce!

Microwaved Crème Anglais. Look at all the lovely vanilla! Smell the Kahlua?

The chilled Crème Anglais was so good I wanted to eat it with a spoon. So I did…just a few spoonfuls! I’m glad I did because the flavor of the rather bold crème was totally overpowered by the rich chocolate of the cake. Even though I poured quite a bit onto the cake, the flavor was just swallowed up by the chocolate. The crème was better paired with the raspberries.

The finished product. Anyone who eats this rich and decadent dessert will instantly fall in love with you! Or love you more than they already do!